The dental implants commonly used are generally made up of an externally threaded implant body, intended to be installed by screwing into the mandibular or maxillary bone, and of a part added onto the body, referred to as an inlay core or pillar, intended to be fastened to the body of the implant, after implantation, and equipped to receive a dental prosthesis (cf. FIGS. 1 and 2).
Dental implants generally consist of a titanium alloy (by way of example: Ti-6Al-4V), the modulus of elasticity (Young's modulus) of which lies in the vicinity of 90-110 GPa. However, the difference with the modulus of elasticity of human bone (30 GPa) is large, so that the stresses resulting from mastication are not transferred satisfactorily to the bone surrounding the implant, which may in the end give rise to a desorption of the bone and the loss of the implant in certain unfavorable clinical cases.
Therefore, this poor stress transfer may lead either to insufficient mechanical stimulation, or on the contrary to peaks of stresses and strains in the peri-implant bone. In either case, this may de detrimental to the osteointegration of the implant and constitutes a limitation to the use of the implants in certain parts of the buccal sphere, especially in the sites where there is only a small amount of bone or the bone is of insufficient quality.